Map courtesy of the CIA
Afghanistan as a country was a political fiction created
by the British and the Russians. Now it is a puppet state maintained by
the United States with the aid of their vassals and mercenaries.
Afghanistan is made up of at least 4 separate areas and whose people
speak 44 different languages. The southern half of Afghanistan is the
northern half of Pashtunistan the other half was made into part of
Pakistan by the British. The Northwest of Afghanistan is actually half
of Khorasan Persia, which was partitioned by the British. The
dominant city in this region is Herat, which is a historical
center of Persian civilization. The center highland is the Hazarajat,
the land of the Hazara. The Hazara are a separate people with a
distinct ethnicity, look, and religion. The North is the southern
section of Turkestan. The dominant city is Mazar-I-Sheriff which is
predominantly Uzbek.
Afghanistan is located in Southwestern Asia. In the west
is the Islamic Republic of Iran, South and southeast is Pakistan, in
the north Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan and the eastern most
part borders China.
Afghanistan is divided by steep mountains and is very
hot in summer and equally cold in winter. Of the seven North-south
passes through the Hindu Kush are navigable in winter.
It is a rugged, mountainous country with cold winters
and hot summers. Measuring 647,500 square km it is almost the size of
the State of Texas. The country is very poor with only a few miles of
railroads, no navigable waterways, no ports and the people are
primarily small farmers and herders, Until the war there was a small
(1% +-) Hindi merchant class but they appear to be mostly gone in the
wake of Taliban.
Just a note on the United States and Taliban: A
significant number of US Officials supported Taliban and actively
campaigned to recognize the Taliban as the Government of Afghanistan. I
clearly remember how strongly Roberta Chew of the US Department of
State supported recognition of Taliban up until at least 1998.
The People:
Afghanistan has almost 26 million people. The primary
languages are Dari and then Pashto.
Pashtun
- About 9,500,000 are Pashtuns. Of that group the
majority are Western Pashtun with the rest primarily Eastern Pashtun or
Pathan. The Pashtun are predominantly at least nominally Hanafi Moslem
but of that group there is a rapid spread to a heretical pseudo-Moslem
sect promulgated by Taliban. (This population estimate may be a bit
since people who favor Taliban or any Pashtun Government tend to
inflate this number to justify Pashtun aggression on their neighbors.)
Tadjik
Hazara
Uzbek
- US Government sources place the Uzbek population at about
1,500,000 people. I have a problem with this figure in that it seems
low. Nonetheless the Uzbek
are the dominant people of Northern Afghanistan. The north or Afghan
Turkistan as it is sometimes called was taken by the Uzbeks from the
Timurids in 1500 to 1510 and has been overwhelmingly Uzbek ever since. Uzbek is a language in the
Altaic language family and is akin to Turkish and the various Turkic
and Turkmen languages.
Miscellaneous Ethno-Linguistic groups in Afghanistan.
Aimaq
Kizilbash
- The Kizilbash are the descendents of the Afshar guard
of Nader Shah Afshari. After the death of Nader the Kizilbash fled to
Afghanistan and to this day represent an important part of the Afghan
upper class. This despite the fact that they are Shia Moslem.
Baluch
Government (or lack there of.)
The last legitimate Government of Afghanistan was the
Rabanni Government that officially was called the "Islamic State of
Afghanistan". Taliban has attempted to create the "Islamic Emirate of
Afghanistan". However no civilized country recognizes this rogue
criminal terrorist organization.
Recent Governments
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